Well, that I can agree with. As they're written, the Sith wouldn't last long, even if they defeated the Jedi. My problem is with the way they're written, I suppose. Well, that and I've spent way to many late evenings listening to half-drunk nerds arguing the relative merits of the Sith code versus that of the Jedi, or what have you.

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.

The Republics main problem is they still think this shit is going to be resolved via negotiations and diplomacy, so their military efforts are always hampered by the very democracy they have to defend.

The Empires main problem is they have no real concept of mercy. Their idea of peace is the utter annihilation of their enemies, so their enemies have no incentive to concede defeat or whatever.

If the Republic went into this war all in, it would be over. If the Empire offered anything other then slavery and/or death, this war would also probably be over. Either of those would make a shitty game though!

I agree about the Empire not losing, but the Sith, while they might not lose to the Jedi specifically, are so self-destructive there's no way they'd be a lasting presence either.

True Sith philosophy is to exploit those that can be exploited without them rising up against you.If there is a threat that cannot be neutralized or exploited, you destroy it.If the threat is too large to be destroyed, you serve it to learn what you can from it, then bide your time until it can be destroyed.Repeat until you control everything, or die in the service of those greater than yourself.Betrayals can only be answered with destruction. However, failures should not be answered with destruction if the asset is still usable.Follow your rage, follow your passion, let your hatred and suffering flow into your enemies and intimidate your followers.

I think MY biggest issue with the whole force user whatnot is the repeated insistance that all passion is crazy evil. And that's just horseshit. And my Jedi are totally going to be played that way, passionate about good shit and if they wind up in the grey zone because of it, OH WELL.

You will go mad trying to make sense of the lore around force users. It is simply garbage in every way , and has been since the first films where we learn that *any* emotion is bad. It's best just to smile and keep walking fast...

Re. Light and good choices - they certainly don't work thatwas for the IA. (loyalty versus chaos). I ended up slightly more light side than dark, but overall had made almost no progress because the options seem to change randomly. One mission light side would be so warm and fluffy and dumb it was impossible to pick it, the next mission the dark side choice would have you massacring kittens in front of your allies for fun. Very, very schizophrenic - and not helped by the fact there are some missions where the choice makes no sense at all. Saving a poor starving family who are on the same side as you - dark side. Saving the family of one of the guards who works for your enemy - light side. That makes no sense at all!

I think the game clicks very much if you stumble onto one of the "preditermined" ways to play your character. The way I played my IA was "get the mission done at all cost, this is the main priority. Don't go out of your way to murder people or flat out decline to help, but if either intervenes with the chance of success of your mission don't risk it", there was always a correct answer for my character, or well, almost always :)

As a matter of fact I swallowed one of these about two hours ago and the explanation is that it is, in fact, my hand.

That was the way I was trying to play my IA as well - guess we have different views on what meets that criteria!

After playing through both sides, I have to say Bioware has done a bang up job of demonstrating how utterly terrible the Jedi are. Insane prequel lore aside, they simply don't make sense - they are full of contradictions and are just as warped as the sith in the other direction. Whole galaxy would be better off without any of them.

See, when I played my IA, that's how I saw a lot of my choices. I can't think of many light side choices that seemed flat out stupid (mind you, I only got to 18). On the other hand, a lot of the dark side choices weren't MWAHAHAHAHAHA either (not the IA-specific ones, anyway, although the shared ones - generally given to you by Sith, who as I have mentioned are fucking crazy - tended to have the mustache twirly dark side choices).

That was the way I was trying to play my IA as well - guess we have different views on what meets that criteria!

After playing through both sides, I have to say Bioware has done a bang up job of demonstrating how utterly terrible the Jedi are. Insane prequel lore aside, they simply don't make sense - they are full of contradictions and are just as warped as the sith in the other direction. Whole galaxy would be better off without any of them.

A religion full of contradictions and conflicting interpretations? Wow, good thing that could never happen in reality, eh?!

Jedi have moved on from super cops to monks then on to zealots and priests and have gained a shitload of baggage and conflicting lore because of the decades of fan and EU crap heaped on them. The prequels didn't help this much but the EU crap that is also tossed-in are the worst parts of it. Pity Lucas chose to incorporate the EU's Jedi code into the Prequels as it was a twisted misunderstanding of what Yoda was preaching at Luke in Empire. (Not to mention Yoda was just plain wrong with his interpretation of Luke's vision...)

Because the Sith are fucking crazy, to the point where they're hilariously self-destructive sometimes. I have no questions as to how they got whittled down to JUST TWO, EVER after seeing how they function. I do enjoy how all the normal Empire people just basically facepalm at everything those crazy fuckers do.

Love that too - especially when your ordinary Empire Joe-Blow actually looks at once amused and scared when talking to your character, as if they are thinking:

"Sith are nutters"

"I wonder what he'll do next?"

"I bet it'll be some crazy shit."

"Oh god, what if he does that crazy shit to me?"

'Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe;All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe.

I enjoyed as my IA how my boss would be like "SIGH. Alright, so we had a perfectly good plan, but then the CRAZY PEOPLE went and did some shit to FUCK IT ALL UP, so now it's Plan B time." I just got the sense that happens a lot and Keeper probably drinks a lot in his downtime.

I enjoyed as my IA how my boss would be like "SIGH. Alright, so we had a perfectly good plan, but then the CRAZY PEOPLE went and did some shit to FUCK IT ALL UP, so now it's Plan B time." I just got the sense that happens a lot and Keeper probably drinks a lot in his downtime.

Scarily enough, that sounds like a few jobs I've had.

The whisky keeps me warm.

Evil's dumb too, by the way, just dumb and ruthless instead of plain dumb though and that gives them a slight edge.

Tuned in, immediately get to watch cringey Ubisoft talking head offering her deepest sympathies to the families impacted by the Orlando shooting while flanked by a man in a giraffe suit and some sort of "horrifically garish neon costumes through the ages" exhibit or something. We need to stop this fucking planet right now and sort some shit out. -Kail

You just said you're totally ok with the Marines going into Kabul, tossing out a shitload of mines and saying "run, fuckers!" Maybe shooting a few inches behind 'em when they don't move fast enough for you.

Not that I'd be ok with prisoners either, but even that thin veil isn't there.

That's one place TOR has become pretty illuminating. I'm hearing a lot of people bitching about light side choices being for stupid people or being too nice. I'm sure there's examples of that, since there are so many of those choices, but overall I think there are a lot of pricks out there. I can only speak to the Consular story to 20, but it was pretty much the ideal I try to live up to every day - I spend all week helping people, professionally.

- How major an impact will my Light/Dark choices have on the companions and their stories? Will I be able to run around shoving kittens in blenders while making my companions watch, then turn around and give them shiny baubles to make them love me? (Not that I advocate shoving kittens in blenders.) Does it reach the point that if you keep doing bad things, you push good hearted companions over the edge? In a single player game, you just reload if you make one to many bad guesses on what your companions will like - in an MMO, not so much.

My assumption is that due to the MMO nature, they telegraph stuff well enough and give you enough chances to turn things around - otherwise you are looking at another reason for the Official Forum crowd to go apoplectic about the designers ruining "their" game.

- How major an impact will my Light/Dark choices have on the companions and their stories? Will I be able to run around shoving kittens in blenders while making my companions watch, then turn around and give them shiny baubles to make them love me? (Not that I advocate shoving kittens in blenders.) Does it reach the point that if you keep doing bad things, you push good hearted companions over the edge? In a single player game, you just reload if you make one to many bad guesses on what your companions will like - in an MMO, not so much.

My assumption is that due to the MMO nature, they telegraph stuff well enough and give you enough chances to turn things around - otherwise you are looking at another reason for the Official Forum crowd to go apoplectic about the designers ruining "their" game.

Companions are like factions in WoW. Being good with them gets you good stuff, being bad with them doesn't do jack squat for you, but they'll never leave you.

"Those lights, combined with the polygamous Nazi mushrooms, will mess you up."

"Tuning me out doesn't magically change the design or implementation of said design. Though, that'd be neat if it did." -schild

- How major an impact will my Light/Dark choices have on the companions and their stories? Will I be able to run around shoving kittens in blenders while making my companions watch, then turn around and give them shiny baubles to make them love me? (Not that I advocate shoving kittens in blenders.) Does it reach the point that if you keep doing bad things, you push good hearted companions over the edge? In a single player game, you just reload if you make one to many bad guesses on what your companions will like - in an MMO, not so much.

My assumption is that due to the MMO nature, they telegraph stuff well enough and give you enough chances to turn things around - otherwise you are looking at another reason for the Official Forum crowd to go apoplectic about the designers ruining "their" game.

Well I mostly got the -1's for conversations that my tarts didn't like. Rarely a -15 or -30. Those balanced out with the other choices. That said, if I had them go on their missions and they brought back gifts, I would give the gifts to them and some would go the +1 route but most were higher with my highest being +100-something. Think that was on Mako and had some tech gift. So yeah, you can blend whatever the hell you want and turn around and sleep with your companion.

"I want to watch it all burn in an orgy of smashed Coke machines and weasel rape." - HaemishM

further question. once you've pissed off your companion i there any way to make them like you again or are all conversations a one time thing? If you can't, the thought of perma-fucking over a faction in an mmo seems a bad idea.

further question. once you've pissed off your companion i there any way to make them like you again or are all conversations a one time thing? If you can't, the thought of perma-fucking over a faction in an mmo seems a bad idea.

You can't kill them, nor piss them off to the point where they leave you. No, you can kiss and make-up.

"Those lights, combined with the polygamous Nazi mushrooms, will mess you up."

"Tuning me out doesn't magically change the design or implementation of said design. Though, that'd be neat if it did." -schild

There are still a couple point-of-no-return type things with companions, I believe, other than just the relationship score. That you can fix with gifts, but I think for example there are some things where you can encourage a companion to go down a light side/dark side path and once they do that, it can't be backed out? Not speaking from direct experience.

There are still a couple point-of-no-return type things with companions, I believe, other than just the relationship score. That you can fix with gifts, but I think for example there are some things where you can encourage a companion to go down a light side/dark side path and once they do that, it can't be backed out? Not speaking from direct experience.

I don't think you can influence your companions to go against their nature though. You aren't going to make Vette a dark side character for instance.

There are still a couple point-of-no-return type things with companions, I believe, other than just the relationship score. That you can fix with gifts, but I think for example there are some things where you can encourage a companion to go down a light side/dark side path and once they do that, it can't be backed out? Not speaking from direct experience.

I don't think you can influence your companions to go against their nature though. You aren't going to make Vette a dark side character for instance.

No, this only applies to a couple specific characters who have stuff like that in their storylines I think.